Log Furniture Tools

All sizes have hex shanks; and are for use in larger electric drills with a 1/2″ (or larger) chuck. The spindles can be made extra secure with finishing nails before the unit is attached to the posts, if desired. A drawknife can be used to peel the wood and the marks left behind exemplify log homes and furniture from days gone by. Using long strokes is preferable but if you have a piece of wood with lots of knots this can be quite taxing on the arms. This is really discouraging if you don’t discover it until after the holes are drilled and you are sanding, thus putting time and effert into firewood. Whichever method you decide on will be greatly influenced by your geography, you may not have access to firekilled or you may not be allowed to cut green trees by law. The biggest challange is the mortise and tenon joint, this is the joint that makes log furniture so appealing.

It is also possible to get different cutting heads for your chucking machine but these tend to be rather expensive. The system that we use was built by ourselves and has no restrictions on the length of piece to be used. Our saw blade turns at 1375 rpm, attached above the saw blade is an adjustable pin on which to rotate the log ( pin size 5/8″ ). Take care when collecting your measurements as there is very little room for adjustment, if your measurements are precise then the rail has a better chance of being tight.

The one thing to look out for here is that the deck floor matterial does’nt overhang the joist, if it does then it must be trimmed back or notched out.

Spacing is the most difficult part to master, when using a 3 1/2″ spindle and you want a 4″ spacing you want to drill the holes at 7 1/2″ apart.

Spacing is the first thing that most people will notice if you do it wrong, the good thing is that it is very hard to tell the difference between and a 7 1/4″ spacing a 7 5/8″ spacing while looking right at the two side by side. Start by building the headboard posts, set them side by side and turn them so that the crack is facing away to the back of the bed also keep in mind any feature that the post may have and position it in a suitable manner.

The next step is the head board and foot board, these pieces are cut to 61″ for a queen size bed if you have 5 1/2″ posts. Once you have the top and bottom headbord rails done put them together with the posts and measure for the spindles. These should be at 45 deg to the holes that you drilled for the head board and the side rails and at the center of the top side rail. This provides a tighter fit on log furniture and gives a stronger shoulder fit on log rails. Disable the notification bar before removing it so the function which runs on an // interval doesn’t error on the missing elements. The key to making durable and attractive furniture of any kind lies, of course, in the ability to make solid joints. To use one, you simply chuck it up in a good-sized handheld drill and apply it the end of the log.

Post rail tenon

When the cutters eventually wear down, they can be changed in just a few minutes with affordable replacement blades. And once initiated, many discover that this pastoral pastime also offers a lifetime’s worth of creative challenges and satisfactions. If this query already starts with the previous zero // match prefix, there is nothing to do.

The blade is adjustable to cut the exact size of tenon required in both dry and green wood. After you have done the layout for your project you’ll need to cut the material to length, drill holes, create tenons and assemble.

The wood is hand peeled and sanded, the machining gives a medium uniformity on the tennons while allowing precise fit. There are ways to get even more rustic, by leaving the inner layer of bark on or by leaving some of the limbs intact, both present special challanges.

The cracks that appear in dry wood are natural and not really a problem if you position them corectly when building. Secondly when the fire goes through the forest it will generally burn the rotten trees to the ground but healthy trees will remain standing and dry nicely.

We are fortunate here in my area, in that the pine grows tall and straight with little taper and there are just enough disformed trees to get those special pieces.

Another popular method is with a chucking machine, this is like a pencil sharpener and the work piece is pushed into it. So back to the centerline method, when drilling the pilot hole it is imparative that you drill in a line aimed at the other end of the workpiece.

The saw utilizes a 10 inch round blade with a chain saw chain for cutting teeth, these can be obtained for weed wackers and are used for thinning trees.

When building deck rail the most important thing to keep in mind is the deck that you will be attaching to, if the deck won’t support the rail it won’t matter how well the rail is made it will not be stable.

The easiest method of securing the posts to the deck is to notch the post so that half of the log sets against the joist and the half that was notched out sits on top of the deck. It is better to have a nut and bolt in case the rail loosens up over time, it can be easily tightened whereas with a lag bolt it is too easy to strip out and then you have a problem. This is roughly 7 3/8″ and the first spacing can be narrowed up to 5 1/2 this will now work out to equal spacings of 7 1/4″. You want to start by selecting the pieces, match up two 48″ posts & two 36″ posts, the head & footboard and select four rails.

The block should be marked off into quarters to find the center of each side, then cut a thin groove on all 4 sides of the block in about an inch. Put a 2 1/4″ tenon 2 1/2″ long on these pieces and build a set of blocks with a 2 1/4″ hole to accept the tenons.

The notch should be cut at center from the top down to the top of the tenon and the horizontal cut should be from the top of the tenon to center cut. When attached diagonally from post to post and tightened this makes for an extremely secure bed. We must strip the protocol since they are often times different, even if the domains are the same.

And to top it off, depending on your access to forestland, the cost of all of the nature-crafted materials that go into your projects will range from very little to nothing at all. As an example, the ends of a chair legs are cut into a round shape (that’s the tenon) and fit into a round hole (the mortise) in the bottom of the chair’s seat. You’ll find a few choices of manufacturers, if this is the type of tenon maker you decide to buy.

It’s a simple set of tools and for many projects, a simple procedure that you can finish in a couple of hours.

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Definitely not a toy but once you get used to using the tools it is a very fun and creative hobby.